In a scene worthy of George Orwell's finest novels, France, the aging dancer in the cabaret of Western freedom, has apprehended Pavel Durov, the creator, owner, and head of Telegram. Durov, the digital pirate who sailed far from the Kremlin's shores, now finds himself in the clutches of those who claim to protect freedoms.

Had Durov bowed and handed over the keys to his digital kingdom to the West, he would now be savoring croissants with Macron at the Élysée Palace, singing together the hymn of "absolute digital freedom" in a dissonant tune, while dancing on the ruins of billions' privacy.

Let’s unveil the grand encryption deception. Encryption is simply turning your messages into codes understood only by those who have the correct key. This means messages are encrypted so that only the sender and receiver can read them, theoretically protecting them from prying eyes. While Western apps claim their platforms are impregnable fortresses, they are, in reality, paper castles collapsing before a breeze from intelligence agencies holding the encryption keys.

The "Five Eyes" nations—the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand—an intelligence octopus with five arms stretching across oceans—feast on our data as if it were an all-you-can-eat buffet at the global surveillance restaurant.

In 2013, Edward Snowden, a former employee of the National Security Agency, opened the digital Pandora’s box, releasing the PRISM program as an omen of doom. Snowden revealed that the U.S. government was collecting data on millions of internet users worldwide, including phone calls, emails, and even browsing records. This program is nothing less than a giant vacuum cleaner sweeping every bit of information from the dark corners of the internet.

The danger of Snowden's revelations lies in showing how every keystroke, every whisper on the phone, every Google search turns into exploitable data. As a result, Snowden had to flee to Russia seeking asylum, becoming an exile in a homeland that the West considers an enemy of the freedom he tried to defend.

As if this weren't enough, Britain introduces the "Online Safety" law. This law grants broad powers to monitor online content, imprisoning individuals for a tweet or a like on a topic about riots in Liverpool! The criteria and judgments on what gets published and what threatens security, versus what falls under free speech, are secrets known only to the British intelligence office.

In the U.S., we find the SESTA-FOSTA law, which ostensibly aims to combat human trafficking. However, it actually undermines digital platform immunity, forcing them to impose strict self-censorship out of fear of legal liability. It is a tool used by U.S. security and intelligence agencies to control the global internet, as Snowden revealed.

Russia, which welcomes Telegram as a fox welcomes chickens in its coop, allows its operation because it holds the encryption keys. Conversely, it bans Signal because its keys are in the hands of the NSA.

France, which arrests Durov today, follows the same reversed logic. The irony is that everyone demands freedom of expression as long as this freedom is exercised through apps whose encryption keys are held by the state!

Let's remember what happened in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, and Bahrain in 2011 when social media platforms became the maestro leading the symphony of the Arab Spring according to a pre-set Obama-esque score. From Cairo to Moscow to Washington and London, we saw how these platforms were used for political chess.

The Huawei and ZTE saga is another chapter in the Western digital hypocrisy narrative. And what about TikTok? Why is it threatened with an American ban? Why does China block Facebook? Have we understood the game?

So what to do? The solution lies in building our digital sovereignty, an impregnable fortress protecting our identity and values from the invasion of Western and Eastern software. We need to develop our own apps, build independent infrastructure, and enhance our digital awareness. We need—just as I mentioned in a previous article—a new "Digital Westphalia," a treaty that redraws the virtual world map just as its predecessor reshaped Europe.

Durov’s arrest is nothing but a loud alarm bell. It is a turning point that requires all of us to rise, or we will find ourselves trapped in the digital mousetrap set by corporations and governments.

The choice is ours, and the digital clock keeps ticking. Let’s remember that every click on "I Agree" could be a nail in the coffin of our digital freedom. It’s time to set our own terms and turn the global digital chess game from a single-player into a multi-player one. Our digital future is in our hands; let’s shape it wisely and bravely, or we will find ourselves merely pixels in a larger picture drawn by others.

By : Einstein of Saudi Arabia